The Suicide Thread - Trigger Warning

[Professor Willow]

I have to admit that such thoughts are becoming a regular occurrence for me too.
The things that I once enjoyed now do nothing for me, my employment and living arrangements are really bringing me down but I have no power to change them.
When I need some support I have no one to turn to in real life and I can't really see me ever finding a partner, I'm just not interesting enough, it all looks rather bleak from where I am standing right now.

[ConverseCody]

^AnnieLu I agree with Cheshire Cat a hobby can help immensely.

DI662 I'm really sorry to hear you're feeling that way It does suck to be in a job you don't enjoy much. Have you ever heard of the app bliss? It's helping me fight my depression. It just has little exercises like 3 positive things in your life, something you're grateful for and one part called meaning in work which is listing some positives about your job.

As for not being interesting enough to find a partner, why do you feel that you are so boring? I doubt that this is really the case. It just sounds as though you have very low self esteem and a poor opinion of yourself :/

[Professor Willow]

^ I think low self esteem is the crux of my problems, its just so hard to believe in myself when I see others, most of them younger than me, happily sailing through life without a care in the world. Everything just seems to fall into place for them, every day of my life is a battle one way or another and I have nothing to show for my efforts.

Up until 3 years ago my work was my life then illness screwed that up for me and now I'm left with nothing, I actually used to look down my nose at people who did less work and had a life, what an idiot I was, all those hours, days, weeks wasted.
Fair enough I was earning well but money can't replace the time I lost and all the things I bought can't bring me the happiness I long for.

When it comes to being interesting my dating escapades have highlighted just how empty my life is, I don't go anywhere, I don't do anything, I have nothing to talk about.
Everyone else has been to college or uni and been on holidays, shagged their brains out and had a life, I've done nothing and its too late to catch up now, I'm 14 years behind everyone else my age, its not my fault I am like this but people just assume I chose to be like this or I am so ****ed up that no one would go near me.

What really is the point of prolonging my suffering any longer?

[Tembo]

I've had a whole year of experiencing new things and just trying to make the most of life. I'm going out more and meeting new people. I'm certainly distracted from my thoughts more. But those suicidal thoughts are still well and truly there - especially as I can't seem to become close friends with people and feel constantly lonely, unliked and alienated from this strange society.

[AnnieLu]

Really struggling again today. Don't know how to shake this heavy hopelessness. There's no point. I went out for tea with a friend yesterday and had a lovely time, but still woke up feeling dreadful this morning it never ends

[Silent Treatment]

^ hope your day improves..today is becoming a struggle for me too..for no particular reason.

[Cheshire Cat]

Guys, I know this place all too well. You're just in the dark and you're not able to think straight.

Our world is giving us more and more permission to suffer in silence, and increasingly hiding pain and trauma behind the veil and mask of positivity. While I don't disagree with positive attitudes to deal with challenges on a daily basis, positivity, like anything, can be adopted as a defense by those struggling with their own pain. They may have no choice if negativity was all they ever knew. Everybody is battling away and we are becoming increasingly disconnected and isolated from each other as a consequence. This also is reflected on the political stage at the moment, with social engineering and thought-policing being the only way to get people to be tolerant, loving, non-racist etc. It's all a load of BS. We're all human under the surface, we all have a light and dark side (often a very dark side) and the long term ramifications of this conditioning is always a crisis, an explosion of the repressed, pent-up anger (which I believe we're seeing now with the dangerous rise of the alt-right). Human beings are not perfect, they are very sensitive to their environments and need the right conditions to prosper, otherwise, yes, things turn ugly.

So the same is true in our emotional lives. Whatever pain and suffering you're going through, don't discount it, don't run away from it, don't beat yourself up for it. It's human pain that has been put onto you, and you live in a world that had no other solutions than telling you to 'deal with it' and 'take responsibility', even though perhaps nobody has ever shown you through example. Nobody is available for anybody else. And the people who think they're positive or have all the answers? Just test them with your own pain and see how patient and open they are with you... not very, because they have their own problems and are fighting their own uphill battle, and your suffering can trigger in them things they haven't dealt with, but have merely turned the other cheek to. 20th century new age-spirituality did the same thing to dogmatic religion in my view: One approach judges everything, the other judges nothing. The problems of mankind haven't been addressed by either.

You are not to blame. You have absorbed a lot of burdens and pain of others (you probably provided an emotional service to needy adults in your family while growing up, and now you struggle to put your life first without feeling confused or guilty) and you can't see the wood for the trees.

Start where you are. You're human and it's perfectly acceptable to feel like utter crap sometimes, but don't give up on yourself. You have just grown very far from yourself.


Exercise: Observe your feelings by comparing: getting lost in a YouTube spiral of endless videos of other people's lives and opinions etc, vs when you do something pro-active for yourself, like going for a walk, writing in a diary, indulging in a hobby, in other words giving a space to your feelings rather than burying and denying them with internet, alcohol or other binges. Which behaviour makes you feel better? The one that makes you feel better is the one that is closer to your true self. When we allow ourselves to get absorbed in all the crap, we get sort of hypnotized by the external world, feel absent from ourselves and hence we get depressed.

[AnnieLu]

^ I feel like I give my feelings too much space sometimes. I look at people who 'grin and bear it' and they always seem to be doing better than me. I know it's not a competition, but I'm beginning to wonder if I would be better slapping a smile on and pretending everything is OK. These 'just got to get on with life' people are at least able to carry on, to get up each morning and face whatever comes their way. Sometimes I feel like we are allowed too much freedom to validate and explore our emotions and that maybe opens a can of worms that never needed opening.

Just thinking out loud really...

[Professor Willow]

Originally Posted by john smith

Has anyone ever tried contacting any groups like Samaritan's before?

I've never been brave enough to and also there's no privacy at home to speak on the phone, I currently see a counsellor once a week (have no real friends so I pay someone to listen to me )

[misska]

You need to keep busy and distract yourself I know because that's what I need too. I often have suicidal thoughts and know one to talk to. Im looking into volunteering there's lots of different roles so it doesn't have to be dealing with customers

[AnnieLu]

Originally Posted by john smith

Has anyone ever tried contacting any groups like Samaritan's before?

Yes. I did in 2005 and it was useless. I emailed them. They just kept a repeating what I said back to me and asking questions I couldn't answer, like why I thought I felt that way. I think it actually made me feel worse.

[Schmosby]

Originally Posted by john smith

my parents having bought me a one bedroom flat to live in just under 3 years ago

That was nice of them :D

My mum expects me to pay her mortgage while I also save to buy my own place lol

[Cheshire Cat]

Originally Posted by AnnieLu

^ I feel like I give my feelings too much space sometimes. I look at people who 'grin and bear it' and they always seem to be doing better than me. I know it's not a competition, but I'm beginning to wonder if I would be better slapping a smile on and pretending everything is OK. These 'just got to get on with life' people are at least able to carry on, to get up each morning and face whatever comes their way. Sometimes I feel like we are allowed too much freedom to validate and explore our emotions and that maybe opens a can of worms that never needed opening.

Just thinking out loud really...

I see your point, and it's perhaps a can of worms a lot of people don't wish to open, and have a right not to, because it's human nature to want an easy, pain free life. Whatever path a person chooses should be respected. My own view though is that depression is caused by our severed relationship with our authentic selves, and the connection to our past gets a little bit lost, due to the repetitive, familiar and often overwhelming nature of our present feelings. There can feel like there is no cause and effect, and we often beat upselves up unfairly for feelings that actually make sense in the context of our past experiences. A horror movie makes sense, it is 'safe fear', because we understand the cause and effect between the images on the screen and our fear reactions, which can be fun. With our own lives, it is harder to make the connection due to the passage of time, justification, judgement, conditioning, repression, denial etc.

I feel in my own life I had no choice but to open up the can of worms, as there was sexual abuse in my early adolescence, and my positivity was a survival strategy, keeping other people happy and safe while I was suffering. My 'negativity' was really just the pain, the true emotions, of these experiences wishing to express themselves and be heard. I now view positivity and negativity as often flip sides of the same denial coin.

[AnnieLu]

^ yes I understand. I was just feeling very self indulgent and like I have no right to keep hashing over the same things year after year with no progress. I've been on meds, had counselling, tried CBT and yet here I am fighting the same battles getting nowhere.

I'm not making any sense, I know.

Sometimes I just wish I was one of those people who could skim across the surface of life and not get dragged down...who could always spin the positives and look on the bright side...who didn't get tied up in worries and anxieties and, ultimately, end up wasting their life doing nothing except struggling to keep their head above water.

[Schmosby]

Originally Posted by john smith

Yes to nice that I am cemented in a situation now that I never truly wanted that I thought being away from the house for a period would be a good thing maybe getting me adjusted from when they are no longer here.

Frankly I can't stand the idea of living the rest of my life alone with nothing to do for the rest of my life something that I have always hoping to change that I don't think I can last another year but now I have the burden of them stuck with a flat if I was gone. It is a living hell that years have just got worse and worse.

I mean it was a lot nicer than leaving you on the streets with nothing. I don't think your parents can stop you feeling lonely even if you lived wih them.

When I was 15 my mum sold the house, left me with a fork and £1 to go buy some curried chips and said I needed to be out by 3pm.

[Schmosby]

I've not found the nhs very helpful either, but mental health is tricky, there is no single way to fix a condition, it takes a lot of work and I just don't think they are that interested in helping.

[Cheshire Cat]

Originally Posted by AnnieLu

^ yes I understand. I was just feeling very self indulgent and like I have no right to keep hashing over the same things year after year with no progress. I've been on meds, had counselling, tried CBT and yet here I am fighting the same battles getting nowhere.

I'm not making any sense, I know.

Sometimes I just wish I was one of those people who could skim across the surface of life and not get dragged down...who could always spin the positives and look on the bright side...who didn't get tied up in worries and anxieties and, ultimately, end up wasting their life doing nothing except struggling to keep their head above water.

I didn't find you self-indulgent AnnieLu. Anyway we all get like that sometimes. I often think I'm a bit self-indulgent with my replies. I sometimes think I'm trying to impress myself, and there are other users on these boards who I feel are better at reading and understanding the original poster's actual feelings. I have been very locked inside myself recently and am impressed by the empathy and interest on these boards displayed by peeps. In any case, what I wrote was meant sincerely and with kindness to you.

Keep searching, keep struggling. I feel similar with the 'been there done that' feeling, with little change. But none of what you tried will have been wasted. Do you write a diary? I started doing that recently each night, and it helps get some of my 'mental mess' down onto paper, and out of my mind. My life has been turned upside down over the last couple of years, and all the things that I drew some sense of security from disintegrated, so I'm having to find the simplest of things to give a sense of meaning to my days. The most mundane of activities bring great significance when you are fighting to keep your head above the waters. Sweeping leaves up in the garden has kept me sane! We have a body, we need to use it. We have emotions, we need to express them. But unchecked thoughts can be our worst enemy.

'The brain is the most overrated organ in the human body.'- Woody Allen

'It is not your feelings that are the problem, it is your feelings about your feelings.' - Benjamin Fry, author

I'm finally writing on a desktop computer rather than my iPhone, which means I can send you an emoticon, to convey more than all the clever words in the world anyway.

[Cheshire Cat]

Originally Posted by Schmosby

I've not found the nhs very helpful either, but mental health is tricky, there is no single way to fix a condition, it takes a lot of work and I just don't think they are that interested in helping.

I agree with this. For true healing to occur in people's lives I fundamentally believe the relationship (with therapists/friends/groups etc) to be key, in order for us to feel genuinely loved, respected, held in positive regard, parented, cradled in a womb etc, in order to help us grow and give us the skills to become more independent. The NHS is overstretched, underfunded, and we just become another patient waiting to be seen. I don't mean by that that there aren't excellent therapists working for the NHS, it's just the inevitable limitations of the system, general ignorance about what human beings really need to heal, and the fact that the therapists themselves are likely stressed-out and need support themselves. So rather than a connection and exchange between 2 human beings, both with their respective strengths and weaknesses, you get a sort of professional vs layman, or teacher vs pupil dynamic, a bit like being back at school. The blind leading the blind perhaps?

To be honest, these days, I think Meetup.com has far more potential to support people through their emotional problems than the NHS. Of the two options, it is the closest thing to the natural way communities have operated and cared for each other for millennia. Love the NHS, but due to the mental health epidemic we have going on, we need another way!

[Appear]

This is where my mind keeps drifting to and getting caught when I'm not distracted for long enough at the moment. I don't think it's been like this before. Sometimes it seems to be more driven by emotion - at other times a more unfeeling 'logic'. It's not an option, for various common reasons, but sometimes a small part of me wishes it were.

[Finn2187]

Dark thoughts are brewing. I can't keep on like this, it has to stop one way or anotber

[Appear]

^ Hope you're okay, Finn.


My mind is here again (or possibly still). I don't see how it's ever going to change.

[Ronnie_Pickering]

under a lot of pressure?

[Appear]

^ Not especially. I'm just very unhappy with my circumstances at the moment and can't see how they can improve.

[Utopia]

I can't even pretend to feel ok, it's like the soul has been sucked from my body and I'm going to die soon... I found emailing the Samaritans quite pointless myself. All that's left is my sense of humor and a bit of motivation to keep going. I have had moments where I have felt normal again; I think there is still hope for me. I can understand why another person in my shoes would commit suicide, but I would rather continue on because I know that life can be bitter-sweet...

[Stucky]

The same as some on here, loved ones prevent me from going through with it. I do not fit in with society and feel that I basically blag myself through everyday and dreading the next one.

The thoughts start at the thought of living the rest of my life in this way. Meds haven't helped and neither has therapy. I spoke with the Samaritans but what can they realistically do? I find I day dream about how I would do it all the time and that does not scare me now. I have come to some sort of acceptance that this is how some people feel and I will always have thoughts.

[Silver]

I have short intense moments of feeling suicidal. Usually they dont last long and I can snap out of them. My big fear of course is that I wont be able to snap out of one in the future and it will drive me to doing it. Death doesnt scare me and in some ways I see it as a relief from the misery that life brings. Dying in pain or fear however does scare me. The one thing that stops me is my dad. If he wasnt here, well who knows. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by negative thoughts that death honestly feels like the only way out. Only an hour or two ago I was sitting at work feeling close to tears and thinking about it all. Now everyone has gone home and Im leaving soon so the misery of work has temporarily lifted for another day.....well until tomorrow. I think feeling suicidal has almost become a coping strategy for when I feel low. Its comforting to know that I am in control of whether I live or die.

I hope everyone is ok

[Finn2187]

I've had enough of it all. Been a shit life and its not getting any better.

[Ronnie_Pickering]

January really rough time of year. Guess place to go is to try find some sort of depression support group, referred by the doctor maybe.

[Appear]

^ Sorry you're struggling, Clementine. I know words are bit naff when you're feeling that way, but I hope stuff is better for you very soon.

[Tembo]

The only thing I seem to be good at is annoying people. I don't really think the world needs a person like me, just using up resources and giving nothing back in return